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Mary Magdalene is a good place to start, because she and her supposed marriage to Jesus are the cornerstones upon which Brown’s claims rest.  In The Da Vinci Code, Brown states that Mary Magdalene is a “royal” Jewish woman from the tribe of Benjamin and Jesus’ single most important disciple.  She is not a prostitute—in fact this was a lie invented by the Catholic Church to demonize her.  She is also his lover, wife, and the mother of their daughter, Sarah.  She was supposed to be the leader of the church after Jesus’ death, but was forced by “Peter’s Party” aka “the winners” to escape to Provence, France with her daughter.  Her womb is the “Holy Grail”, her bones are buried under the glass pyramid at the [[Louvre]], the Priory of Scion and Knight’s Templar were dedicated to preserving her story and worshipped her as a goddess, she was the “Divine Mother” and represented the real purpose of Jesus’ life and teaching—to reintegrate the “Sacred Feminine” into society.  However, Mary Magdalene is mentioned only a few times in the gospels—and never once is a single one of Brown’s claims about Mary supported by the Biblical record.  (Welborn 63)   

Mary Magdalene is a good place to start, because she and her supposed marriage to Jesus are the cornerstones upon which Brown’s claims rest.  In The Da Vinci Code, Brown states that Mary Magdalene is a “royal” Jewish woman from the tribe of Benjamin and Jesus’ single most important disciple.  She is not a prostitute—in fact this was a lie invented by the Catholic Church to demonize her.  She is also his lover, wife, and the mother of their daughter, Sarah.  She was supposed to be the leader of the church after Jesus’ death, but was forced by “Peter’s Party” aka “the winners” to escape to Provence, France with her daughter.  Her womb is the “Holy Grail”, her bones are buried under the glass pyramid at the [[Louvre]], the Priory of Scion and Knight’s Templar were dedicated to preserving her story and worshipped her as a goddess, she was the “Divine Mother” and represented the real purpose of Jesus’ life and teaching—to reintegrate the “Sacred Feminine” into society.  However, Mary Magdalene is mentioned only a few times in the gospels—and never once is a single one of Brown’s claims about Mary supported by the Biblical record.  (Welborn 63)   

Where did all of these ideas come from?  According to The Da Vinci Code’s resident scholar, Teabing, “the royal bloodline has been chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians,” citing The Templar Revelation and [[Holy Blood, Holy Grail]] as sources.  Interestingly, these books (which are also found in Dan Brown’s official bibliography) are dismissed by all serious historians, and described as being “schlock pseudo-history and conspiracy-theory.” (Welborn 63) Teabing also mentions ''[[The Woman with the Alabaster Jar]]'' and ''[[The Goddess in the Gospels]]'', both by [[Margaret Starbird]], who uses, among other things, numerology(the sum of the numbers in her name), to conclude that Mary Magdalene was worshipped as a goddess.  Additional sources for Brown’s claims lie in the [[Gnostic gospels]] (Welborn 63)

Where did all of these ideas come from?  According to The Da Vinci Code’s resident scholar, Teabing, “the royal bloodline has been chronicled in exhaustive detail by scores of historians,” citing The Templar Revelation and [[Holy Blood, Holy Grail]] as sources.  Interestingly, these books (which are also found in Dan Brown’s official bibliography) are dismissed by all serious historians, and described as being “schlock pseudo-history and conspiracy-theory.” (Welborn 63) Teabing also mentions ''[[The Woman with the Alabaster Jar]]'' and ''[[The Goddess in the Gospels]]'', both by [[Margaret Starbird]], who uses, among other things, [[numerology]] (the sum of the numbers in her name), to conclude that Mary Magdalene was worshipped as a goddess.  Additional sources for Brown’s claims lie in the [[Gnostic gospels]] (Welborn 63)

[[Image: littlemermaid.jpg|thumb|right|200px|In TDVC, Brown gives credence to Margaret Starbird’s idea that Ariel, the ‘Little Mermaid’ in the Disney film, is not just a fictional fairy tale character, but a symbol representing Mary Magdalene.  According to Brown, Walt Disney was a believer in the Sacred Feminine and purposefully filled the movie with hidden codes about Mary Magdalene, including Ariel’s red hair (supposedly MM’s was red as well) and the painting she finds at the bottom of the sea ([[Georges de la Tour]]’s [[Magdalene with the Smoking Flame]]). (Starbird) These claims seem to be disproven given that Walt Disney had been dead for over 20 years when The Little Mermaid was made in 1989.]]   

[[Image: littlemermaid.jpg|thumb|right|200px|In TDVC, Brown gives credence to Margaret Starbird’s idea that Ariel, the ‘Little Mermaid’ in the Disney film, is not just a fictional fairy tale character, but a symbol representing Mary Magdalene.  According to Brown, Walt Disney was a believer in the Sacred Feminine and purposefully filled the movie with hidden codes about Mary Magdalene, including Ariel’s red hair (supposedly MM’s was red as well) and the painting she finds at the bottom of the sea ([[Georges de la Tour]]’s [[Magdalene with the Smoking Flame]]). (Starbird) These claims seem to be disproven given that Walt Disney had been dead for over 20 years when The Little Mermaid was made in 1989.]]